This episode of Clearly The Best focuses on Close To My Heart’s new alcohol based markers. These markers make it so fun and easy to create stunning results in your artwork. The colors blend beautifully, creating lovely shaded images. Take a look at the video to see what I mean….

The markers come in a set of 2 complementary colors for only $5.95/set. Check out the entire color pallet here.

Even though Studio J® is fast and easy to use, it is helpful to know some great tricks that can make customizing your layouts even more exciting. Here are some Studio J tricks straight from our professional Close To My Heart artists:

1. Customize your background and texture paper. You can change the color and intensity of the background and texture paper included in whichever kit you choose. Simply select the piece of background and texture paper, change the color in the color selection tool, and increase or decrease the intensity of the color in that same popup box.

2. Crop My Stickease® quotes, titles, and tags. The cropping feature on the My Stickease images allows you to select a section of a quote, title, or tag to use as a border or other embellishment.

3. Create a customized My Stickease image. If you have a specific image in mind to use as an embellishment on your page, you can create a customized My Stickease to fit your theme perfectly. Simply add a text box, photo hanger, ribbon, ribbon slides, and Stickease to create the little suitcase! So easy! Be sure to crop or send elements behind other elements when necessary, and add several elements together for a unique look!

4. Select more than one element at a time. If you want to move several elements of your layout at once, simply click and drag your mouse around the elements you would like to select. Let’s take buttons, for example. After the buttons have been selected, you can click the icons in the popup box to choose to align the buttons vertically or horizontally if you desire.

5. Make faux washi tape with vellum text boxes. To create the look of a piece of clear washi tape, make a small rectangular text box, filled with vellum background (this is the default color for text boxes). You can make the tape strips as large or small as you want, or even layer them for more emphasis.

6. Stretch one photo across multiple photo wells. If you have fewer photos than photo wells, instead of deleting the excess wells, try scaling the picture to a larger size and then copying the picture to other photo wells and matching the photos up until they align with an almost seamless image. This trick works best with photo wells that are adjacent to each other.

7. Create ruffled ribbon. Select “Ribbons” in the drop-down menu under the Embellishments toolset. Choose ribbon tab and rotate the tab so that it is vertical on the page. Then layer several tabs on top of one another, sending every other one to the back to create a ruffled look.

8. Create a jagged border with text boxes. You can create a jagged border simply by rotating multiple text boxes about 45 degrees and making them the same color as the background. Put these boxes on top of a long, rectangular box of another color, and you’ve got a jagged border!

9. Change the background of your layout. Sometimes you may like the photo and journal arrangement in a layout, and yet want to change the background colors. Because photos sit on top of everything else, this is easy to do. Simply pull a journaling box over the space you want for a different background and fill it with a color from the color selection tool or a patterned paper from the Papers toolset. Then, send it backwards until the photo wells are on top of your new background.

Bonus Trick! Use keyboard keys to make embellishments. Did you know that some of the best tools for creating custom embellishments are the basic keys on your keyboard? It’s as simple as typing into a journaling box with no background color. Use periods to make a polka dot pattern, angle brackets to create a trendy Chevron look, overlapping pound signs to make burlap, question marks to make rope, and so much more!

Try these tricks on your own Studio J®layouts. Click here to check it out. October is the perfect month to give it a go because for every 9 layouts you create, you’ll get a 10th layout for FREE!

Get a free Studio J® layout in October! In this special promotion, you will receive a free custom-printed layout when you buy 9 custom-printed Studio J layouts. To receive the discount, just add 10 or more layouts to your cart. You’ll see a discount reflected in your order total. And you can totally take advantage of this promotion by ordering in multiples of 10. Buy 9, get 1 free. Buy 18, get 2 free. Buy 27, get 3 free. Up to 4 free layouts! It’s a great time to use any Member Bonus layouts you may have. If you haven’t tried Studio J yet, now is the time to start!

Don’t you just LOVE this fall layout designed by fellow CTMH consultant Madeline Morcelo? She generously provided step by step instructions, so I decided to make my own. It went together so easily and turned out beautifully, so I’m offering a workshop on Friday October 19th at 6:30 for anyone who lives locally. A $5 materials fee will cover the cost of everything needed to make this page. As a bonus, I’ll provide FREE printed instructions for a companion page and a complete list of materials needed so that you can complete the 2nd page on your own. Space is limited for this workshop, so RSVP right away to reserve your spot!

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve participated in any challenges and I’ve really missed it. I didn’t feel like folding laundry this afternoon, so I got crafty instead!

I cut the flowers and decorative square with the Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge from Close To My Heart. I used Chocolate cardstock and the Avonlea paper pack as well as our fabulous new burlap ribbon. A few Sparkles and a Bling Gem finish off this quick and easy card. The sentiment is from last year’s convention stamp set, Dreams. Ink colors are Chocolate and Juniper.

See you tomorrow with another creation from this afternoon. Now I need to go fold that laundry……